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BATTAGRAM/SHANGLA: It was a routine morning for students who were en route to school on a chairlift. But as fate would have it, they soon found themselves suspended in mid-air, thousands of feet above the ground after two of the three wires holding the chairlift snapped. “As a result of the sudden jerk which came with a big bang, we piled on each other in the lopsided trolley, which was swaying due to strong gusts of wind,” the survivors told Dawn a day after they were rescued in a 14-hour-long operation. The passengers — including six students — held on to the rickety trolley’s hooks and supporting pipes — their lives dangling by a solitary steel wire. As if the gusts were not enough to terrify them, the wind pressure on the trolley scared them to death. “All hope was lost; with every passing moment,” one of the survivors told Dawn. However, they got their hopes up again after an army chopper started hovering over the chairlift in an attempt to rescue them. Before the aerial operation was called off at night, 13-year-old Irfan was the only one rescued by a helicopter. Irfan said he did not see any other option but death before he was rescued. As he was being pulled out of the gondola, his parents and the rest of the family gathered at the site anxiously awaited his return. Survivors, families recall how panic eventually gave way to relief; cable car owner, operator arrested Another student, Niaz Mohammad, said army officials threw down a rope after rescuing Irfan. “I tied the rope around myself, but when I was pulled up, the rope got stuck with another rope on top of the cable car and they had to abort the attempt,” he said. “After several attempts, when the helicopter flew back, I thought it was impossible to rescue us,” Attaullah, 16, told Dawn. Gulfraz, 20, who was earlier mistakenly identified as a teacher, said that at nightfall, their hopes also faded. “When the helicopters left and darkness fell in front of our eyes, we started losing hope; if we could not be rescued in daylight then night was surely going to make things worse,” the survivor told Dawn. Heroic operation Enter Sahib Khan and his Koka and Engineering Company. They were called in to rescue the stranded passengers after the aerial operation did not get the job done. The two private rescuers and their team from Bisham Seror, along with zipline operators from Naran, rescued the passengers in a daring operation, widely hailed by locals. Sahib Khan told Dawn at his residence that he was asking the local authorities to spearhead the efforts to save the students, but his requests were ignored at first. Mr Khan claimed that the army had succeeded in rescuing one student, but after that it became impossible for them to overcome the situation, due to poor visibility. After nightfall, he and his team were allowed to initiate the operation with ground support provided by the army, Rescue 1122, police and locals. He claimed that locals and the administration started to back him after he rescued the first person. Soon, other rescues followed, and eventually everyone was safely by midnight. Niaz Mohammad was rescued at about 11pm. His teary-eyed family and mother hugged him and thanked God for the rescue. His father, Umer Zaib, said they had lost all hope of their son’s safe recovery, but rescue efforts thankfully bore fruit, ending their hours-long ordeal. Voice of reason As these teenagers were facing death, Sher Nawaz, who was on his way to Abbottabad, became a voice of reason. He said the chairlift was already ferrying students when he reached there and he got on board on the third trip. “After the rope snapped, the students got scared and were screaming… I calmed them down and told them to be patient and have some hope… whatever fate has held in store for them will come to them,” he said as he related the scenes inside the trolley to Dawn. “Some of the children were so frustrated, they were considering jumping down, but the elder passengers gave us confidence,” 15-year-old Rizwan Ullah told AFP. Gulfaraz said they were prepared to die after the ropes snapped. “I don’t have words to explain what we faced inside the hanging cable car,” he said. On the ground, the families’ terror was palpable. 13-year-old Irfan’s father said that shortly after his son left for school, he received word about the accident. “I reached there with a heavy heart, unaware of my son’s presence in the cable car… soon someone told me that my son is also stranded.” “My wife and other kids rushed to the scene and their eyes remained glue to the cable car till the rescue operation came to an end in the night,” he said. “Death is less painful than looking at your teenage son dangling thousands of feet above the ground, in a broken trolley,” Umraiz told Dawn. Two arrested Meanwhile, Allai police arrested cable car owner Malik Gulzarin and operator Ejaz after a loding a case over the incident. The FIR said that a substandard rope had been used, with no alternatives available, which endangered the lives of the passengers. The report also mentioned that the chairlift operators had been instructed beforehand to provide a fitness certificate for the cable to a nearby police station, but they neglected to do so. Separately, AC Allai Muhammad Jawad told Dawn that he formed an inspection committee to inspect such chairlifts. SOURCE:https://www.dawn.com/news/1771862/hanging-by-a-thread-and-living-to-tell-the-tale

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner mercenary group chief who led a failed munity against Moscow, is presumed dead after being named among passengers on a private jet that crashed into a field near Moscow with no survivors. The 62-year-old warlord, who challenged Vladimir Putin’s authority in a 23 June uprising, was listed on the manifest, or passenger list, of an Embraer Legacy business jet that spiralled out of the sky in the Tver region, about 96km (60 miles) north of the capital, according to civil aviation authority Rosaviatsia. Dmitry Utkin, the co-founder of Wagner and a former Russian military intelligence special forces officer, was also on board, it said. The other passengers onboard were Sergey Propustin, Evgeniy Makaryan, Alexander Totmin, Valeriy Chekalov and Nikolay Matuseev, according to Rosaviatsia. The regulator also said pilot Aleksei Levshin, co-pilot Rustam Karimov and flight attendant Kristina Raspopova were onboard. Flightradar24 online tracker showed that the Embraer Legacy 600 (plane number RA-02795) carrying Prigozhin had dropped off the radar at 1811 local time (1511 GMT). Seven passengers and three crew were said to be aboard the aircraft, which was flying from Moscow to St Petersburg. The bodies of all 10 people travelling on board the crashed plane have been recovered from the site, and the search operation has been completed, says the Interfax news agency, quoting emergency services. The cause of the crash was not immediately clear, but video circulated on the Baza Telegram channel, which is closely associated with Russian security services, showing a plane spiralling into a nosedive. Flight tracking data gave no indication of a distress call or inflight emergency, and the aircraft was still climbing when it disappeared from the radar. Media channels linked to Wagner quickly claimed a Russian air defence missile had shot down the plane, without citing evidence. British security forces believe Russia’s FSB intelligence agency shot down the jet on the orders of Vladimir Putin, The Telegraph reports. Prigozhin’s longstanding feud with Russia’s beleaguered military, and his aborted uprising, would give Mr Putin’s state apparatus plenty of motive for revenge. The mutiny, which ended when a deal was stuck between Prigozhin and the Kremlin, marked the most significant threat to Putin’s authority during his decades in power. As news of the crash broke, the president was attending a concert commemorating the 1943 Battle of Kursk and hailing the troops of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Mikhail Podolyak, a chief adviser to Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky, said Prigozhin’s reported demise showed “it is obvious that Putin does not forgive anyone for his own bestial terror”. Prigozhin’s deal to end the uprising was a “death warrant”, he added. The UK Foreign Office said it was “monitoring” the situation closely, while US president Joe Biden said he was not surprised by the reports, adding that “not much happens” in Russia that Putin is not behind. A Telegram channel linked to Wagner said Prigozhin is dead. The Grey Zone account said he was “killed as a result of actions by traitors of Russia”. In an image posted by another pro-Wagner social media account showing burning wreckage, a partial tail number matching the jet could be seen. Prigozhin has reportedly used the plane before, including shortly after the aborted armed uprising. A second private jet linked to Prigozhin, which also appeared to be heading to St Petersburg, turned back to Moscow and landed, flight tracking data showed. Once a low-profile businessman, Prigozhin profited from Mr Putin’s patronage, earning the nickname “Putin’s chef”. He amassed a fortune from state contracts and later went on to establish a paramilitary army that became an important extension of Russian power abroad. Moscow would repeatedly deny any official link to the Wagner group, founded in 2014. Fighters for the private military company were deployed in support of Moscow’s allies in countries including Syria, Libya and the Central African Republic. The United States has sanctioned it and accused it of atrocities, which Prigozhin had denied. Prigozhin had acknowledged that he founded and financed the Internet Research Agency, a company Washington says is a “troll farm” which meddled in the 2016 US presidential election. In November 2022 he admitted that he had interfered in US elections and would do so again. He soared in prominence after Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, where his fighters – including thousands of convicts he recruited from prison – were at the vanguard of the Russian assault on the eastern city of Bakhmut. That battle became the longest and bloodiest battle of the war, and gave Prigozhin a boost in power among Kremlin circles and among the Russian military elite. It would also have made him plenty of enemies. Prigozhin used social media to trumpet Wagner’s successes and wage a months-long feud with the military establishment, accusing it of incompetence and openly questioning decisions made on the Ukrainian frontline. In June, Prigozhin led the mutiny in which Wagner fighters took control of the southern city of Rostov-on-Don and shot down a number of military helicopters, killing their pilots, as they advanced towards Moscow. In a television address as Prigozhin’s forces marched twowrads Moscow, Mr Putin called it an act of treachery that would meet with a harsh response. The deal ended the march would be made hours later. As part of that deal, Prigozhin and some of his fighters would leave for Belarus and a criminal case against him for armed mutiny would be dropped. But confusion has surrounded the implementation of the deal and the future of Prigozhin. The Kremlin said he attended a meeting with Mr Putin five days after the mutiny ended. Then, on 5 July, Russian state TV said an investigation against him was still being pursued, and broadcast footage showing cash, passports, weapons and other items it said were seized during a raid on one of his properties. In late July, Prigozhin was photographed in St Petersburg during a Russia-Africa summit in the city. Prigozhin appears to have been able to move relatively freely, a surprise given the anger Mr Putin showed while the mutiny was taking

Eighteen bodies have been found in a forested area of northern Greece hit by wildfires for the past four days, the Greek fire service says. Initial reports suggest those who died may have been migrants. A coroner and investigation team are heading to the scene near the Dadia forest. The Evros region of north-eastern Greece, not far from the Turkish border, has been ravaged by fires. A hospital in the city of Alexandroupolis had to be evacuated. Newborn babies and intensive care patients were among those moved to a ferry at the port. Fires are raging across several fronts in Greece, whipped up by high winds and temperatures which climbed above 40C in several places on Tuesday. Flames are thought to have spread rapidly since Monday in the large wooded Dadia national park to the north of Alexandroupolis. Emergency services sent mobile text messages to the surrounding areas asking people to leave. Before the latest grim discovery, an initial death believed to have been of a migrant was reported in the area. Eighteen more bodies were found on Tuesday near a hut outside the village of Avantas, reports said, when the fire brigade inspected the charred remains of a building. Fire service spokesman Yiannis Artopios said the possibility that the victims had entered Greece illegally was being investigated, given that there had been no reports of missing residents. Unconfirmed reports said the bodies were discovered in two groups and there were fears that the number of casualties could increase. The fire service said investigations were continuing throughout the area where the fire had spread. The Evros region has become one of the most popular routes for Syrian and Asian migrants crossing the River Evros from Turkey into the European Union. The Dadia forest is also known to be a route favoured by migrants. Yiannis Artopios stressed that emergency messages had been sent to all mobile phones in the area, including foreign networks. Migrant support group Alarm Phone said it had been in contact with more migrants who needed rescuing from the fires. One group of nine people had already crossed the border while another 250 people were stranded on two small islands in the River Evros, it said. In the past three days 380,000 acres of land has burned in the Evros region alone, according to the National Observatory of Athens’ Meteo unit. Firefighters are having to respond to major outbreaks in other parts of Greece too. The fire brigade has urged tens of thousands of people to leave parts of the north-west Athens suburb of Ano Liosia. A few kilometres to the north, 50 nuns were reported trapped when a fire broke out near a historic monastery on the slopes of Mt Parnitha. Several villages have also been evacuated on the island of Evia and in Boeotia in central Greece. A fiery, red glow was visible on the fringe of Alexandroupolis in the early hours of Tuesday and satellite images showed several regions of Greece covered in thick smoke. During the night residents in eight nearby villages were told to leave their homes and head for safety in the city. Later on Tuesday a stream of cars could be seen heading there as vegetation along the coast burned. IMAGE SOURCE,DIMITRIS ALEXOUDIS/EPA-EFE/REX/SHUTTERSTOCKImage caption, A number of those evacuated from the hospital were taken to a ferry at the port of Alexandroupolis Flames were seen entering the grounds of the university hospital while the operation was taking place to evacuate the site on the north-east fringe of Alexandroupolis. Greek officials ordered a fleet of ambulances and buses to take some 115 patients away. While some of the patients were moved to other hospitals in the city, as many as 90 were taken to a ferry, the Adamantios Korais, which has been requisitioned to look after intensive care patients and new-born babies. West of Athens, several warehouses became engulfed in flames in an industrial area in Aspropyrgos and close to the Attica Highway the sky darkened with acrid smoke. Two Albanian workers told the BBC that if helicopters had arrived in time they would have been able to put the fire out. Around midday on Tuesday a second large fire broke out on the opposite side of the highway in the village of Fyli. Half an hour later residents received a mobile phone message from the 112 emergency number to evacuate the area. IMAGE SOURCE,KOSTAS TSIRONIS/EPA-EFE/REX/SHUTTERSTOCKImage caption, Fires raged out of control around Fyli, close to the Attica Highway Meanwhile, France endured its hottest ever day on Monday after the mid-August holiday, according to weather service Météo-France. Temperatures on Monday soared as high as 42.4C in the Drôme area of south-eastern France but the record refers to Monday’s daily average temperature of 26.63C, recorded in 30 weather stations across France. In Switzerland, the high temperatures have pushed the “zero-degree isotherm” – the height where temperatures fall below freezing point – to a record altitude. MeteoSwiss said the limit had now increased to 5,298m (17,381ft). The point is shifting steadily higher, mainly because of global warming induced by humans, the Swiss met office says. The increased height of the zero-degree isotherm has been accelerating since the 1970s, especially in spring and summer, it says. Source:https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66579193 

Officials in Hawaii have urged residents to submit DNA samples to help in the identification of human remains found in the ashes of a fast-moving wildfire on the island of Maui that killed at least 115 people earlier this month. According to authorities, at least 1,100 people are still missing, with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) seeking family members’ help in identifying the remains of the dead, the AFP reported. end of list Special Agent Steven Merrill told reporters on Tuesday, that the number of missing people was likely to rise. “We’re cross-referencing all the lists so that we can determine who in fact truly is still unaccounted for,” Merrill said. Investigators acknowledged the possibility that not all of the remains of victims from the fire that started on August 8 on Maui will ever be found. The tourist town of Lahaina, home to 12,000 people, was all but wiped off the map, with thousands of missing people initially appearing on lists maintained by various organisations, including the police, Red Cross and shelters. Video Duration 02 minutes 06Maui wildfire survivors decry lack of warnings as death toll rises Maui County Prosecuting Attorney Andrew Martin, tasked with heading up the family assistance centre, said that he has spoken with experts who have handled DNA sampling in mass-casualty disasters elsewhere, and that he is seeing less willingness in Hawaii. “The number of family members who are coming in to provide DNA samples is a lot lower than they’ve seen in other disasters,” he said. Martin said he could not explain why people seemed less willing to provide DNA samples – so far 104 had been collected. He added that he hoped his reassurances that the DNA provided would only be used to identify remains, and would not be transferred to any law enforcement database or agency, would help more family members come forward. Investigators said the list of the approximately 1,100 missing people was a complex jumble that included some people identified by a single name, others with missing data like birth dates, some people whose genders were not clear and also that there were likely duplicate reports of the same people as the list is compiled from varied sources. They gave no forecast on when or if they might ever finish the task of accounting for everybody on the list. They also said they could not yet give an estimate on what the total number of people killed by the fire would eventually be. Maui police chief John Pelletier urged people to provide DNA and file a police report with as much information as possible if they have relatives unaccounted for. “If you feel you’ve got a family member that’s unaccounted for, give the DNA,” he said. “Do the report. Let’s figure this out. A name with no callback doesn’t help anybody.” Pelletier said authorities were refining the data and were hoping to publish a verified list of missing persons “in the next few days”. The devastation was so bad, though, that Pelletier warned that even after all the searching for remains is over, “I can’t guarantee … that we got everybody.” SOURCE:https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/23/hawaii-officials-seek-families-help-in-identifying-remains-of-victims

After nearly 15 hours of effort, commandos of the Pakistan Army successfully rescued all eight people who were stuck inside a cable car after one of its ropes broke down in Allai Tehsil in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Battagram district. Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar made the announcement on X, previously known as Twitter, saying: “Relieved to know that Alhamdolillah all the kids have been successfully and safely rescued. Great team work by the military, rescue departments, district administration as well as the local people.” Earlier in the morning, an open cable car became stranded halfway across a ravine and was hanging by a single cable after the other snapped, leaving eight people stuck inside for more than 15 hours. Before sunset, two of the children were rescued with the help of an army helicopter but the operation via copter was suspended due to darkness and the windy weather. The army later started a ground operation — led by SSG’s general officer commanding (GOC) — to retrieve the remaining five people on the cable car with alternative means. Another cable car — smaller in size — was hung on the same cable to retrieve the people and deliver food and water to them. The Pakistan Army also brought in a local cable crossings expert for help. Pakistan Army Aviation and the Pakistan Air Force participated in the rescue operation along with the SSG troops. The rescue mission had several complications including gusty winds in the area and the risk of the helicopter’s rotor blades further destabilising the lift. Political figures heap praise on army, locals Soon after the successful completion of the rescue mission, political leaders started heaping praise on the army’s rescue officials, locals and authorities involved in the risky operation. Initial report of incident An initial report of the incident says that seven schoolchildren and a local person were travelling in the cable car to go to the Batangi Government High School. According to the report, one cable of the lift broke at around 7:45am which led to the cable car being stranded mid-air. The cable car hands at a height of 6,000 feet. Abrar, Irfan, Usama, Rizwan Ullah, Ataullah, Niaz Muhammad, Sher Nawaz and Gul Faraz are stuck inside the lift. The report said that Battagram’s deputy commissioner contacted Hazara’s commissioner after he received report about the incident. The DC asked for the arrangement of a helicopter. Moreover, the SSG team based in Kaghan Valley was also contacted after which the helicopter reached the location at 11:45am. Meanwhile, the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) helicopter reached the site at 2pm. District administration, police, and two rescue teams are currently present at the location, the report said, adding that an emergency has been imposed at the nearby health centres and the District Headquarter Hospital (DHQ) Battagram has also been put on high alert. Punjab’s DG Rescue Dr Rizwan Naseer said that a height rescue team is also on standby and is ready for help. Army to ‘continue rescue operation till night’ According to Geo News, Army Aviation and SSG teams tried to conduct the rescue operation for the fourth time to rescue people inside the cable car. The operation had become very difficult as there was another cable 30 feet above the car which could have collided with the helicopter. However, the rescue operation was conducted with extreme caution. Moreover, the Pakistan Army also kept into consideration other options to continue the rescue operation after it becomes dark. Speaking to Geo News, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Nazeer Ahmed assured that the children inside the cable car were fine. He said that they were in continuous contact with them. Before two of the kids were retrieved, the rescue officials faced several difficulties due to gusty winds. When the Pakistan Army’s rescue helicopter approached the cable. it also started shaking which had led to the risk of the cable car losing balance. Other options to conduct the rescue operation, which is being deemed risky, were also under consideration including a sling operation by the SSG team. Wing Commander (retd) Asim Nawaz had said the sling operation should be started at the earliest. Sling operations are aerial operations where large loads are moved in geographically difficult terrains. “There is a possibility of bad weather in this area. It is better if the helicopter is 60 to 80 feet away from the cable car,” he had said. Speaking about the operation, the former military officer said that a commando will approach closer to the cable car during the sling operation. “A cable car stuck at a height of about 900 ft midway due to breakage in one of its cable in Battagram. 8 persons including 6 children [are] stranded,” the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said in a statement. The statement said NDMA has provided coordination support to Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA). “After coordination Pak Army helicopter has been despatched for [the] rescue operation,” it added. The incident was confirmed by Mansehra Deputy Inspector General of Police Tahir Ayub who said there is no option but to rescue the stranded passengers through a copter. The cable hangs in the middle of a deep ravine surrounded by stunning mountains, where cable cars are frequently used to connect remote villages and towns. Syed Hammad Haider, a senior KP provincial official, said the cable car was hanging about 1,000 to 1,200 feet above the ground. “We have requested the KP government to provide a helicopter because the relief activity is not possible without the help of a helicopter,” he said. ‘Passengers stuck for several hours’ Gulfaraz, a 20-year-old who is currently present on the cable car, told Geo News over the phone that he and other passengers have been stuck for more than six hours. He shared that a 16-year-old passenger, who suffers from a heart condition, has been unconscious for the last three hours. Gulfraz shared that the teenager was going to the hospital through the cable car. “We don’t even have drinking water in the

Three snowboarders sustained injuries when a chairlift became detached due to an unexpected “gust of wind” at Thredbo Ski Resort, the location of Australia’s longest ski lift. Two women and a man in their 20s suffered back and facial injuries after one of the chairs detached from the Kosciuszko ski lift on Saturday afternoon. The snowboarders plunged to the ground while approaching the top of the mountain after the chair plummeted several metres onto the snow near Eagles Nest. Thredbo Ski Resort said the incident was an isolated accident and was caused by a “freak gust of wind”. “No other guests or chairs were affected. Thredbo is committed to the safety of our guests and our people,” it said in a statement. pan and Australia plan joint navy drills in disputed South China Sea, Philippine officials say “The incident is currently being thoroughly investigated by SafeWork NSW and an independent engineer. Thredbo assures guests that their safety is paramount and that we will continue to apply our high standards of safety and risk management.” Images shared online showed injured people being assisted by the members of the ski patrol as the chair lay in the snow. Operations at the Kosciuszko chairlift — Australia’s longest at almost two kilometres — were temporarily halted for inspections. The chairlift was built 33 years ago to replace the old double chair in 1990. A wind gust reaching a speed of 65 km/h was registered just before the accident at the nearby weather station, situated close to the top station of the chairlift. The storm system dumped fresh snow across the ski fields. This marks the latest occurrence of a chairlift incident at Thredbo, which earned the title of Australia’s best ski resort for the fifth consecutive year in 2022. In 2019, a skier experienced minor bruising but remained otherwise unharmed when a chair detached from the Gunbarrel Chairlift, a four-seater similar to the Kosciuszko Chairlift. Source:https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/thredbo-chairlift-detach-kosciuszko-b2396162.html

A passenger bus in Pakistan’s Punjab province collided with a parked van carrying fuel drums, leading to a fire that claimed the lives of at least 18 people and left 13 others injured. The bus with more than 40 passengers was bound for Islamabad from Karachi when it met with the accident in the early hours of Sunday near Pindi Bhattian, Hafizabad district of eastern Punjab province. Senior police officer Fahad Ahmed said the bus rammed into the pick-up van that was carrying diesel drums, causing a massive blaze due to the impact of the collision and contact with fuel. Police said the van was parked on the shoulder of the Lahore-Islamabad Motorway when the accident happened. Mr Ahmed said 18 bodies that have been retrieved from the bus were badly charred and a DNA testing would be conducted to confirm their identity. The drivers of both vehicles died, police said, adding that some of the rescued passengers suffered severe burn injuries and some are in critical condition. Inspector general motorway police Sultan Khawaja said those who managed to jump from the windows of the bus managed to survive the deadly crash. “On the Pindi Bhatian section of the motorway, the bus hit a static van which was carrying a fuel tank. The bus hit it from the rear and both vehicles caught fire immediately, killing at least 18 passengers,” he said. He said the investigation will reveal “whether the bus driver fell asleep at the time of the accident or the crash took place because of over-speeding”. Visuals on social media showed the ashy skeleton of the bus standing on the highway as the fire continued to blaze through parts of it. Punjab caretaker chief minister Mohsin Naqvi expressed grief over the accident and directed health authorities to ensure the best treatment for those injured. Deadly road accidents are a common occurrence on Pakistan’s highways, where safety norms are frequently overlooked and traffic rules are breached. Additionally, drivers often succumb to fatigue and doze off while driving on extended journeys. In July, a passenger bus carrying devotees met with an accident after the driver allegedly fell asleep in the Fazilpur area of Punjab’s Rajanpur district, killing five people and injuring 20 others. The tragic bus accident occurred on the same day as a militant attack in the northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, resulting in the death of 11 labourers, caretaker prime minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar said on Sunday. A truck carrying the workers to a construction project site in Waziristan, near the Afghan border, exploded after a suspected improvised explosive device detonated, security officials said. Source:https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/south-asia/pakistan-bus-fire-death-pindi-bhattian-b2396134.html

SITAPUR, Uttar Pradesh: Another discriminatory and horrific incident occurred with the largest minority in India—Muslims wherein an elderly Muslim couple was killed in Uttar Pradesh over their son’s relationship with a Hindu woman. The incident occurred in Sitapur city of UP. The couple—Abbas and his wife Kamrul Nisha—died on the spot in the attack and all the accused fled from the crime scene. Indian media reported that Sitapur Superintendent of Police (SP) Chakresh Mishra said a few years back Abbas’s son had eloped with a girl from the neighboring household. A case was registered in this regard and Abbas’s son was sent to jail, but as soon he came out of jail, some members of family planned the attack on the couple. Chakresh Mishra said, “According to the villagers, the son of the deceased couple, Shaukat, and Rampal’s daughter Ruby had an affair.” “Shaukat had abducted Ruby in the year 2020. At that time, Ruby was a minor and after registering a case, the police sent Shaukat to jail. He again abducted and married Ruby in June,” the Police said. Source:https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/india/muslim-couple-killed-sitapur-uttar-pradesh-india-b2396193.html

It’s Friday afternoon, August 18, two days after dozens of Christian homes and 19 churches in various neighbourhoods and villages of Faisalabad’s Jaranwala tehsil were vandalised and burned down by a mob over blasphemy allegations. Sayedwala Road, which cuts through Jaranwala city is lined with rows of prison vans and police vehicles. Law enforcement agencies are on high alert in surrounding cities, including Faisalabad, where most residents of Jaranwala had fled ahead of the attacks on their homes. They say they are expecting another mob attack after Friday prayers. Inside Jaranwala, the road leading from Sayedwala Road to Cinema Chowk is blocked with barbed wire and all entrances leading to the roundabout have been cordoned off. The alleged blasphemy incident occurred at Cinema Chowk, a few hundred meters from Jamia Masjid Mahtab, where the prayer leader made announcements, inciting the violence that followed. Additional police contingents from Faisalabad and Rescue-1122 fire engines dot all road entrances from Christian Town to Essa Nagri in Chak 127 on the fringes of Gogera Bank Canal, around two kilometres away, all the way to the Parish House, a further 2kms away. In the street next to Jamia Masjid Mahtab, two to three homes out of many are reduced to ashes. Here, a man sits outside his burned house on a chair and his neighbour, a woman, stands on the footsteps leading to hers. “Someone knocked on my door early in the morning and said everyone in Christian Town has left because of an impending attack and you need to hurry,” she says, reminiscing the ordeal matter-of-factly. The blasphemy suspects were residents of Christian Town, a crisscross maze of narrow streets and no sewage system, a few blocks behind Jamia Masjid Mahtab and adjacent to Chammra Mandi (leather market). An adjoining street carries a makeshift banner with the slogan of Tehreek-i-Labaik Pakistan. A makeshift banner of the TLP hangs in a street adjacent to Christian Town. All photos by author Tents and barbed wire secure the perimeters of the streets where the suspects lived and if those weren’t enough, policemen wade through overflowing gutter water to turn people away from the place. All the homes in those streets are almost burnt to ashes. But in the street next to the mosque where the lady lives, someone had to identify for the mob which of those homes belonged to Christian families. Pointing at her neighbour sitting outside his burned house, she says they only returned Friday morning at around 10am because officials of the building department were supposed to visit their homes to estimate damages. Valuables stolen from a trunk inside a home in Essa Nagri. The Punjab government is considering an offer of recompense for damages between Rs200,000 and Rs1 million, depending on the scale of the damage. On Friday, building department officials began visiting homes in various neighbourhoods to begin to devise a mechanism to estimate damages. “We will measure the size of these houses and arrive at an estimate based on what we can see,” said a building official, making the rounds in Essa Nagri. Irreplaceable losses In Essa Nagri, a member or two of each house that was torched also sit on chairs waiting for the inspection teams to arrive. In this neighbourhood, the boundary wall of the United Presbyterian Church, whose pink walls with painted Christmas ornaments still emanate heat, were broken down using hammers and set alight. The church leads into an extremely narrow street littered with the burned frames of cycles, furniture, and refrigerators. The first house on the right belongs to Allah Ditta and his mother. The 30-year-old was employed as a gardener at Jaranwala Assistant Commissioner Shaukat Masih’s home, who had to flee himself. Allah Ditta says his house was targeted because people in the vicinity knew of his employment. His mother walks me through the ransacked and burnt down rooms, but especially asks me to see the roof. Broken furniture inside a room in Allah Ditta’s home. Iron girders of the roof have melted to the ground inside a home that was vandalised by the mob. “My special needs son lived here,” she says, pointing at the scorched remains of a once bedroom. The iron girders of the roof have melted and fused with the floor. Charred remains of her son’s pigeons litter the ground. “They burned his pigeons,” she says, offering no other explanation. A few paces from her house, another resident, Sarfaraz Emmanuel Paul, stands outside his home surrounded by video loggers and journalists who want to film his burned down house and record his interview. His mother was a Sunday School teacher and in one of the rooms that was completely burned down, her Sunday School materials and hymn books were ripped apart and set on fire. As I walk through the streets, a couple sitting outside their home recognise me and call me over. They were members of our church once and had used all their retirement funds to move to Essa Nagri a few years ago to start a small prayer ministry. Their home, to the left of Pastor Saleem Arif’s All Evangelical Covenant Church near Gogera Branch Canal, was looted and burned to the ground. The pastor’s own home, on top of the church, was also looted and burned. The story is the same in every street of Essa Nagri as visitors — journalists, government officials, neighbours, NGO workers and members of the clergy — hug and cry with the residents, most of whom have returned that day and are seemingly apoplectic with shock. ‘Indescribable scenes’ Shahbaz Samuel Francis Masih, an elder (position of authority in church hierarchy) at the Catholic Church, describes how the violence played out in his street. According to him, Father Khalid Mukhtar called him and asked him to tell people to leave. He oversaw the exodus and sent those who couldn’t leave into nearby sugarcane fields. He points at an ‘alam’ (a black flag marking Shia place of residence) erected at a house in the distance. “I ran to my

Saudi Arabia has engaged in a large-scale and brutal killing of African refugees and migrants at its southern borders with Yemen that could constitute crimes against humanity, according to a prominent rights group. Human Rights Watch (HRW) has documented, in a report made public on Monday, “widespread and systematic” abuses committed by Saudi border guards against mostly Ethiopian refugees who flee armed conflict, economic hardships and droughts in their homelands. The nongovernmental New York-based organisation said hundreds, and likely thousands, have been murdered by Saudi border guards between March 2022 and June 2023, and killings are continuing. Witnesses said they were targeted by firearms, explosives, and artillery and mortar shelling from Saudi border guards when trying to cross. Some saw dozens killed in front of their eyes, while others experienced serious injuries like amputations, or saw refugees arrested. “I saw people killed in a way I have never imagined,” said Hamdiya, a 14-year-old girl who crossed the border in a group of 60 in February but was forced to go back to the Yemeni capital Sanaa after repeated attacks. “I saw 30 killed people on the spot.” A male minor interviewed by HRW said border guards detained their group of five men and two 15-year-old girls after killing many others, and ordered the men to rape the girls. One man refused and was shot and killed on the spot. “I participated in the rape, yes. To survive, I did it,” the boy said. “The girls survived because they didn’t refuse. This happened at the same spot where killings took place.” “Saudi Arabia’s abuses against migrants and asylum seekers, committed historically and detailed more recently in this report, have been perpetrated with absolute impunity. “If committed as part of a Saudi government policy to murder migrants, these killings would be a crime against humanity,” HRW said in its report, for which it interviewed dozens of Ethiopians and analysed videos, photographs and satellite imagery. Rights groups have documented abuses of refugees in Yemen by both the government and the Houthi armed group that took control of parts of the country since the war started in 2014 – and launched one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises – but HRW said the scale and intensity have only increased since. Seeking safety via the ‘Yemeni Route’ East African refugees, predominantly Ethiopians, begin their arduous journey to Saudi Arabia by taking on the Eastern Route, also known as the Yemeni Route, which goes through Djibouti then by boat across the Gulf of Aden. In Yemen, smugglers take them north by land, and the abuse begins. HRW said a network of smugglers, traffickers and authorities have for years kidnapped, detained and beaten Ethiopian refugees in Yemen, and extorted them or their families – mostly displaced women and children in dire straits themselves – for money. Female refugees are often at risk of being sexually assaulted by smugglers or other refugees, and two out of 10 interviewed by HRW said they became pregnant as a result. Refugees are often taken to one of two makeshift “camps” on the Yemeni side of the border, separated by ethnicity, ostensibly for language purposes. “There are no fewer than 50,000 people,” HRW quoted Berhe, an 18-year-old from southern Tigray as saying of al-Raqw camp where Tigrayan Ethiopians were taken. People interviewed by HRW confirmed that there were tens of thousands in the makeshift camps, waiting to cross into Saudi Arabia. The crossing is a mountainous border separating Yemen’s Saada governorate and Saudi Arabia’s Jizan province, which is documented to be littered with land mines. Refugees travel in groups that could range from a handful of people to several hundred. On the way, the refugees may be attacked with explosive weapons – including mortar projectiles – at times for hours on end, or days. The people who survive the attacks but do not manage to escape back into Yemen are detained by Saudi border guards. While the exact numbers of people killed were difficult to document, survivors were able to give HRW the number of people who returned to the camps in Yemen, between 4 and 10 percent of those who had set out. One of the people HRW interviewed said he had approached the border guards to retrieve the body of a girl from his village and found “her body was piled up on top of 20 bodies”. The group called on Saudi Arabia to immediately and urgently revoke any policy to deliberately use lethal force on refugees, asked concerned governments to impose sanctions on Saudi and Houthi officials, and said the United Nations should establish an independent investigation into the killings and abuses. Source:https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/21/hrw-report-details-saudi-arabian-guards-killing-refugees-at-yemen-border